Remember Your Leaders: Charles Spurgeon

Soul-winning is the chief business of every Christian minister; 

indeed it should be the main pursuit of every true believer.

 -Charles Spurgeon

A Biographical Sketch[1]

Charles Haddon Spurgeon stands today as one of the greatest preachers and evangelists this world has seen. His gospel-influence in the 19^th century still thunders today through his influence. He preached the central truth of God’s free grace for sinners in Jesus Christ for decades and did so with a burden and fire in his soul not for intellectual pursuit but for the salvation of the lost. Hughes Oliphant Old famously stated “There was no voice in the Victorian pulpit as resonant, no preacher as beloved by the people, no orator as prodigious as Charles Haddon Spurgeon.”[2] He is perhaps known most famously as the “Prince of Preachers.”[3] He found himself bitten by the gracious and unwarranted love of God and did all in his power to make it known by his life. We would do well to learn from this leader in the Christian faith.

Spurgeon was born on June 19, 1834 in Essex, England. He grew up in a devout Christian home with his father as a minister. He was the oldest of seventeen children. However he found himself growing up as one unconverted, even as he was exposed his entire childhood to the truths of the Christian faith growing up with his father as a minister. He stated later in life, “The light was there, but I was blind.”[4]

However God has a way of giving sight to the blind. At fifteen years of Age, on January 6, 1850, Spurgeon found his life utterly transformed. It was a Sunday morning and Spurgeon found himself walking in the midst of a raging snowstorm. To get out of the driving cold, Spurgeon took shelter in a local church in Colchester which was currently holding their Sabbath worship service. He sat in the pew and listened to the lay-preacher expound on Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth.”

“Fixing his eyes on young Spurgeon, he urged: ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live.’ Like an arrow from heaven’s bow, the gospel hit its intended target. Spurgeon wrote: ‘I saw at once the way of salvation. Like as a brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me.’ Gazing by faith on Christ, he was dramatically converted.”[5]

A year later, age sixteen, Spurgeon preached his first sermon and at age seventeen he was called as minister to a Baptist church in Waterbeach. It was here in Spurgeon’s early life that his tremendous gift of preaching was recognized. At age nineteen Spurgeon was called again, this time to pastor New Park Street Chapel in London, a historic church, once of profound prominence. He would shepherd these individuals for the remainder of his life.

Spurgeon’s preaching here transformed the lives of thousands. The attendance went from 200 to 1,500 just after a year which in turn forced the sanctuary to be enlarged. The continued increase of those coming to hear the master preacher forced them to leave the restricted space of New Park Street Chapel and worship in Exeter Hall which would hold near 5,000. However even this new space could not keep up with the growing crowd. They were forced to build a new place for worship that would accommodate the growing crowds, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, which was “the largest Protestant house of worship in the world.”[6] In 1861 the Metropolitan Tabernacle was opened and could sit more than 6,000.

Throughout Spurgeon’s adult life he was vehemently zealous for the truth of the Gospel and the preservation of its essential doctrines. This embattled him in many controversies, similar to Luther in his zeal for the Gospel. One such controversy near the end of his life forced his resignation as pastor. Fed up with the growing devaluation of the Scriptures in his time, particularly in the Baptist Union, Spurgeon passionately pled for a return to a posture of reverence toward the Scriptures as God’s word. However others did not share his opinion and he resigned and in the ensuing turmoil passed away prematurely, on January 31, 1892, at fifty-seven years old.

“During his thirty-eight year London ministry, Spurgeon witnessed his congregation grow from two hundred to almost six thousand members. Over this time, he took 14,692 new members into the church…it has been estimated that Spurgeon personally addressed nearly ten million people.”[7]

Spurgeon was a faithful evangelist, preacher, theologian, and leader of the church in England. His wake can be felt today. Here are three examples of his faith for us to take to heart and incorporate into our lives:

The Primacy of the Scriptures

It was the end of Spurgeon’s vocation as Pastor that was defined by his defense of the primacy of the Scriptures as the authoritative revealed will of God for the life of the believer, though he never failed to preach this throughout his years as a minister. Upon the Scriptures rested all of Spurgeon’s efforts:

“For Spurgeon, the Bible was just that, the very Word of God to break the heart and bring the soul before the throne of God, thus bringing them to a redemptive knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Upon this foundation Spurgeon built his entire theology and ministry.”[8]

The Gospel was central to Spurgeon’s ministry; he was a herald of the good news, and central to the Gospel is its revelation in the Scriptures. They were to Spurgeon an invaluable gift.

And so Spurgeon’s call on his audience was to truly trust and believe in the word of God. As a preacher, he knew that “No man [would] preach the gospel aright who does not wholly believe it.”[9] His aim therefore was to so order the minds of his listeners to see and believe in the capital-A Authorship of the Scriptures.

“This volume is the writing of the living God; each letter was penned with an Almighty finger; each word in it dropped from the everlasting lips…Albeit, that Moses was employed to write his histories with fiery pen, God guided that pen…if I turn to the smooth page of John…the fiery chapters of Peter…if I turn to Jude, who launches forth anathemas upon the foes of God, everywhere I find God speaking; it is god’s voice, not man’s.”[10]

Spurgeon’s resolve for the primacy of the Scriptures in our lives is a call for us to see them as the very word of God and therefore as the greatest instruction, the greatest exhortation, the greatest balm, the greatest knowledge of love that we could ever know. It is worthy then of our time and study. Or in the famous words of Spurgeon himself: “It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, your blood is bibline and the very essence of the Bible flows from you.”[11]

The Call to Evangelism

The second thing we ought to have impressed upon us from the life of Spurgeon is his obedience to the Scriptures in his resolve to show lost souls that their only hope was in the free grace of Jesus; Spurgeon was a gifted evangelist. He stated that, “Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; indeed, it should be the main pursuit of every true believer.”[12]

Spurgeon therefore included an appeal to the hope of the Gospel in every sermon he preached. The lost soul was his target as he spoke from the pulpit, the Gospel the arrow, and his voice the bow. He longed for those who did not know Christ to know the joy that he experienced in that Methodist church in Colchester, when the darkness dissipated and light of God’s love in Christ was shed in his heart. His appeal sprang both from a passionate desire for the lost to know Christ and his peace and from a desire to be faithful to God’s call on his life—to proclaim the fullness of the Gospel without reservation.

Spurgeon then “felt that preaching that did not lead to conversions was pointless.”[13] His resolve as an evangelist should lay heavy on our hearts, in a day where evangelism can be avoided and the lost disregarded. Spurgeon’s own conscience spurs us to value those who do not know Christ, to save them from eternal peril.

“I should be destitute of all humanity if I should see a person about to poison himself, and did not dash away the cup; or if I saw another about to plunge from the London bridge, if I did not assist in preventing him from doing so; and I should be worse than a fiend if I did not now, with all love, and kindness, and earnestness, beseech you to lay hold on eternal life.”[14]

The Christian’s Witness

Lastly, Spurgeon’s example would impress upon us the importance of our witness to each other and the world as we represent the name of Christ in our life. We are all—whether pastor, accountant, student, athlete, librarian, teacher, chef, mom—ambassadors for the Gospel if we claim the name Christian. We act not on our own behalf, but upon and for Another.

In Spurgeon’s lasting Lectures to My Students, he addresses those who are discerning and being equipped for pastoral ministry. He says at the outgo that this is their beginning, “True and genuine piety is necessary as the first indispensable requisite; whatever ‘call’ a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry.”[15] While he is addressing students, this foundational exhortation ought to be given to any who claims the name of Christ for all of the Christian’s life is that of ministry. When a Christian opens a door for someone, they do so in the love of Christ. When a Christian serves the poor and homeless, they do so in the name of Christ. But so too when a Christian exhibits road rage, is caught in a lie, or sleeps around, they do so in the name of Christ.

“Take heed, therefore, to yourselves first, that you be that which you persuade others to be, and believe that which you persuade them daily to believe, and have heartily entertained that Christ and Spirit which you offer unto others.”[16]

And so from Spurgeon’s own example as one faithful to the word of God, as one faithful to the call to share the good news with the lost, and as one faithful in living a life above reproach, we have much to remember and imitate from this great man of God.

*     *     *

JT Holderman is Assistant Pastor of Bellevue Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Gap, PA.

---

[1] The bulk of Spurgeon’s “A Biographical Sketch” has been referenced from Steven J. Lawson, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL.: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2012).

[2] Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Vol. 6: The Modern Age (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 422.

[3] Lewis Drummond, Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1992), 277.

[4] Charles H. Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Vol. I:1834-1854 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1899), 98.

[5] Steven J. Lawson, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon, 5.

[6] Ibid., 8.

[7] Ibid., 17.

[8] Drummond, Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers, 624.

[9] Ian H. Murray, Heroes (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009), 282.

[10] Charles H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. I (Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications, 1981), 110.

[11] Charles H. Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Vol. IV:1878-1892 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1900), 268.

[12] Charles Spurgeon, The Soul-Winner: How to Lead Sinners to the Savior (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 15.

[13] Steven J. Lawson, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon, 84.

[14] Charles H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. V (Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications, 1981), 21-22.

[15] Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010), 9.

[16] Ibid., 13.

The Dangers and Delights of Christian Biography

The Dangers and Delights of Reading Christian Biography

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us (Philippians 3:17).

***

Be imitators of me as I am of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).

***

Dr. John Piper chose the above text from Philippians 3:17 when he gave the first ever “Charles Haddon Spurgeon” lecture at the Nicole Institute of Baptist Studies on the campus of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. I was there to hear the lecture in person. His point was that just as Paul faithfully imitated Christ, and others likewise imitated Paul, so too we ought to continue that long chain of men and women who for generations have trailed after our glorious and Risen Lord.

For seventy minutes I sat in awe listening to one of my favorite living preachers waxing eloquent about one of my favorite dead preachers. This was pure joy to me, because for nearly twenty years I have been consumed with reading the biographies of famous Christians who have gone before me. Curiously and by some divine “coincidence,” I had just read the same biography on Spurgeon from which Piper apparently crafted his manuscript for that electric evening.

I cannot estimate how valuable to my soul these types of biographies have been over the decades, especially as a local church pastor.

During some years, I have chosen one particular man as my focal point and read as much as I possibly could both by and about him. I have especially focused on those from my own theological tradition whose perspective is often close to mine. I went through a Jonathan Edwards phase first, then a year or so in John Calvin, then a Francis Schaeffer period. Spliced in between these times I have grown close to other dead men as well: the Reformers and Puritans always foremost among them.

Strangely, these now-glorified saints have become my “friends.” Sometimes, particularly during seasons of mild depression and apparent ministry defeats, they have become closer to me than my actual friends. Perhaps some others reading these lines will share that strange trans-generational experience.

It is during these dark times that we find one of the most delightful serendipities of reading Christian biographies: we find that the exact same struggles that we have endured are not so terribly unique after all. There is no temptation—either of body or mind—that has not been experienced by another brother come before me. There is no malady of frame or soul that God has not called another believer to trudge through, long before I came along. The ability of previous generations to endure through suffering actually has the strange power of pulling me along through the midst of my own battles.

Too, I find that my unquenchable passion to be in the presence of the Holy One has been shared by a unique breed of men and women in whose footprints I now walk. When I read in 1999 of Hudson Taylor’s passion for the lost souls of China, I found a man who shared—and greatly excelled—the angst I felt for those who don’t know Jesus. Like him, I felt willing to cross land and sea to share the Gospel with even one unreached individual. Hudson Taylor lived and died for the lost!  

When I visited A.W. Tozer’s grave in Akron not far from where I grew up, and just a stone’s throw from my in-law’s home, I felt that I shared the same longing to delight in God’s presence as the man whose several books I had lately enjoyed.

Who would not be moved by the accounts of Edwards’ fiery preaching in the Great Awakening, or be taken up in the Luther’s joyous fear of declaring “Here I stand!” at the Diet of Worms? How could I avoid Calvin’s tender pastoral spirit “rubbing off” on me as he wrote tearful letters to men soon to be martyred for the faith in Reformation-era France? How could I not be stirred within when I read one of Spurgeon’s echoing sermons, still just as alive today as the day his voice dominated the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London? How could I not savor my English Bible more when I learned of all that William Tyndale endured to smuggle New Testaments into England in bales of hay? I wept at 1:00am when I read of Dietrich Bonheoffer’s martyrdom just weeks before the Second World War ended in a Flossenberg prison camp.  

But here is where I find the great danger: the more I try to be like these men, hoping to see the shape of my own life in their ever-lengthening shadows, the more I know I can never measure up.

I find that my very pursuit of “imitation” can be my greatest frustration. Have you ever tried to photocopy another photocopy before? The more generations away from the original we get, the worse the quality of the print becomes. In the same way, some of the biographies that we read tend to make the error of “hagiography,” they no longer produce accurate representations of the man and instead make them into saints: halo, wings, and all.

I must become content—even pleased, if I can be so bold—with the person God has made me to be.

“Hagiography” (literally: saint writings) is the spurious genre of trying to make another man into a complete saint. In the biography of Spurgeon I mentioned above, for instance, the author studiously avoided almost any critique of the man himself. In an almost forced confession to create the veneer of “objectivity,” the author finally admitted that Spurgeon (gasp!) smoked cigars! That was the only fault he could find!

And so as a reader, I am nearly driven to despair. Reading the account of a hero whose ministry only grew—all the time—made me wonder if there wasn’t something seriously wrong with me. My own ministry wasn’t growing at all. By the time we get more than a hundred years away from an historical figure, the more perfect his biographers seem to cast him. His weaknesses are glossed over, especially those which his wife and children probably knew best.  

Yes Calvin and Luther et. al. were geniuses in their times and greatly used of God in their unique age. But if I try to replicate the extraordinary acts of these men and women, I will find myself increasingly frustrated. These men, after all, were extraordinary, not because they were miniature “christs” themselves, but because God in His mercy saw fit to use them extraordinarily.  

It is simply not fair to compare ourselves with the all-time “greats,” or to expect that the unusual outpourings of God’s Holy Spirit ought to become usual in our day.

Yes, there are times when God’s Kingdom advances in very marked ways. The wheat grows quickly after the thunderstorms, but it also grows during more temperate weather as well. Even if more slowly. God is glorified as much by the ordinary, trudging, faithful ox in the field as He is by the brilliant lightning bolts that lead the storm.

To expect to have the computer-like mind of a John Calvin or the preaching unction of a Charles Spurgeon, or the audacity of Martin Luther is simply not a fair. True, we will continue to hope and pray for God to raise up such men that can shake our own generation out of its complacency, but to expect every faithful man and woman to change the world alone is not realistic.  

More realistic (and more Biblical) is to expect God to smack the world out of its lethargy by a thousand thousands of ordinary, unknown, average believers who are sincerely pursing the glory of Christ in their own day and generation.

God grant us to be among their number. Amen. 

...

The preceding essay is from Matthew Everhard's forthcoming book, Unknown: the World-Changing Power of Ordinary Christians. Matthew is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Book Review: Spurgeon: A New Biography, by Arnold Dallimore

As a pastor, I have an incredibly high admiration for the life and ministry of Charles Spurgeon. His preaching, writing, and leadership stand out among the all-time greats of Christian history. Were I to be granted a "double portion" of any one man's spirit, as Elisha sought from Elijah, I might just choose C.H. Spurgeon.

This biography by Arnold Dallimore is an excellent introduction to the life and ministry of the "Prince of Preachers." Reading through this brief work will give the reader a swift but sufficient introduction to the primary life events, theological moorings, and major accomplishments of this stalwart Christian hero.

As Dallimore traces the incomparable Spurgeon from his progenic childhood, beyond his meteoric rise as a young Baptist pastor, and through his grueling sufferings of both body and soul (the Downgrade Controversy was especially wearing on the London Calvinist), the reader gets the impression that Spurgeon was nearly apostolic.

In fact, the reason that I gave this work four stars instead of five is that it verges on hagiography. Throughout, nearly the only "weakness" that Dallimore can detect in the life of C.H. Spurgeon is that he smoked cigars and had an alcoholic beverage from time to time! Certainly, this work is an attempt, however admirable, to cast Spurgeon in the purest of lights and to give him his due among the venerable men of Christian history.

I too love much about Spurgeon: his pleading for souls, his resistance to the creeping influence of liberal theology, and his ardent defense of Calvinism and the doctrines of our Puritan forefathers. But as a pastor myself, I might have been even MORE encouraged (if that were possible) to hear about a single time that Spurgeon had failed at something--even if just once in his life!

Instead, Dallimore casts Spurgeon as almost impeccable in both life and character. "The man who lived in CONSTANT fellowship with God manifested in his daily life ALL the fruits of the Spirit. Here love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control were EVER present, and with them there was a hatred of their opposites--a loathing of EVERY form of sin" (p. 179, emphasis added). Wow.

I left the book wondering: did Spurgeon have any Achilles heal at all? Did he succeed as a father and husband as he did as an author and mega-church pastor? (Notably, almost nothing is said of Spurgeon raising his sons in the home). Did the unfaltering success of his publications and preaching success ever cause him to need to repent of pride?

Dallimore's work was thorough, interesting, and compelling throughout. Overall, I would highly recommend this work as a good introduction to C.H. Spurgeon, but I would caution all who read it to not compare themselves too rigorously to Dallimore's protagonist. None of us will be able to stand next to him.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Book Review: The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. By Andrew A. Bonar.

Every once in a while, I finish a book that, the very act of finishing the last page, makes me feel that I have just lost a dear friend. This is especially true for me in biographies wherein the protagonist dies an early and untimely death.

Such was the case of the biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843) by his contemporary Andrew A. Bonar. At the end of the book, at M'Cheyne's early death at age 30, I found my own soul crying out to God in grief for a lost friend.

M'Cheyne a young Presbyterian pastor in the town of Dundee, Scotland seems to have been one of those rare souls who continually lived in the conscious, joyful presence of God. His own kindred spirit, Andrew Bonar, does an admirable job of capturing the essence of a young pastor who seemed to have had two passions above all things: a zeal for personal holiness and devotion, and an unquenchable desire to save souls.

Clearly the author (Bonar) wrote this work as a eulogy for the life of a close friend. In that sense, it is far from objective. Picking up this work for the first time, the reader must realize that these pages were written to memorialize a man dearly loved by the author. It was not meant to be an evenhanded critique of M'Cheyne's successes and failures as a minister. The author, therefore, is not concerned to set out in public view the many shortcomings that M'Cheyne saw resident within his own soul.

Having said that, the biography itself is a stirring first-hand recollection of one of nineteenth century Scotland's most fire-baptized preachers. As M'Cheyne's closest mortal friend, Bonar was privileged to have access to many of his personal affects. Within this book, the reader finds an equal mixture of quotations from M'Cheyne's extant letters, poetry, journal entries, sermon manuscripts, and no short supply of his more lively verbal quotations.

Bonar stirringly traces the life of his protagonist from his birth, to his immense grief at his brother's death as a young man, to his ordination in the church of Scotland, to his charge in the Dundee church, to his evangelistic mission to Israel to preach the gospel to the Jews, to his participation in the revival fires of Scotland, and finally to the stirring account of his death.

The reader is constantly refreshed in his own walk with the Lord as we hear M'Cheyne preach passionately to his own people both from the pulpit and by house-to-house interviews. One gripping event was moving to this reviewer (himself a pastor): when M'Cheyne and Bonar returned from their life's great mission-adventure to Israel, M'Cheyne found that the interim pastor had been used of God to spark a revival in the church he himself loved so dearly. Rather than fight a deadly jealousy within his own soul that God had so used another man, M'Cheyne praised God knowing that the salvation of his people's souls is infinitely more valuable than his own reputation as a preacher. 

Throughout, M'Cheyne is imminently quotable, and many of his gems are so striking to the reader so that he is forced to put the book down and engage in prayer himself:

• "I fear the love of applause...May God keep me from preaching myself instead of Christ crucified." 
• "Rose early to seek God and found Him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such great company!...They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."
• "Never see the face of man till you have seen His face who is our life, our all." 
• "It has always been my aim, and it is my prayer, to have no plans with regard to myself, well assured that I am, that the place where the Savior sees fit to place me must ever be the best place for me." 
• "I see a man cannot be a faithful minister until he preaches Christ for Christ's sake--until he gives up striving to attract people to himself, and seeks only to attract them to Christ. Lord give me this!"

M'Cheyne was a man whose doctrine was solidly rooted in the Confession of his Presbyterian tradition. He openly confesses his love for the Westminster Confession of Faith and its doctrine while at the same time cherishing the very presence of Christ alone in the "secret" places of his study. As a divine, M'Cheyne preached with full vigor both the electing grace of predestination, and the responsibility of man to repent and believe the Gospel. His doctrine of election, therefore, did not quench his zeal for evangelism. (It never should, of course).

Impact
Two things will be of lasting worth to me having read this biography.

First of all, in the waning pages of his biography, Bonar includes an unfinished manuscript of M'Cheyne's own pen called "Reformation." Here, the young pastor wrote out his own guidelines for seeking personal holiness, especially through the God-ordained means of confession of sin. These short pages are a masterpiece of self-reflection, mortification of the flesh, renunciation of the world, and the grace of repentance. He begins, "I am persuaded that I shall obtain the highest amount of personal happiness, I shall do most for God's glory and the good of man...by maintaining a conscience always washed in Christ's blood." Anyone who seriously pursues holiness would do well to put into practice the recommendations with which M'Cheyne charges himself.

 Secondly, among his poems, "Jehovah Tzidkenu" must surely be his greatest. Here, he writes of the obstinacy of the human heart, the free grace of God in Christ, and the treasure of salvation. He writes,

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.

I oft read with pleasure, to sooth or engage,
Isaiah´s wild measure and John´s simple page;
But e´en when they pictured the blood sprinkled tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul;
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu"”´twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see"”
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life giving and free"”
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.

Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast,
Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne´er can be lost;
In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field,
My cable, my anchor, my breast-plate and shield!

Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,
This "watchword" shall rally my faltering breath;
For while from life´s fever my God sets me free,
Jehovah Tsidkenu, my death song shall be.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Follow on Twitter @matt_everhard.